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Every week, men and women all over the world are spending 40 hours plus at a job they absolutely hate. The Washington Post tells us that only 13% of people are at a job they can tolerate.
I don’t have to give you the stats, because chances are you are in a job you can’t stand. I worked a job I hated for 12 years, everyday my hatred for the job grew.
When I started this job at 19-years-old everything was fine. I was young, and had the energy of a bull. OK, that might be an exaggeration, but I could handle the long hours. As I got married, and we had kids, the long hours started to wear on me.
It got even worse when my kids started having activities at school. I started this job at midnight, which meant on those nights I would get three hours of sleep.
Sleeping three hours a night, and working 60 hours a week sucked, but what I didn’t realize was the effect it had on my health, and the rest of my life. It was so bad that after I quit this job, I needed a month to detox.
I know there are many reading this that can relate. Every day you go to a job that makes you miserable, wondering if you’ll ever escape. What you may not be thinking about is how this job is affecting your life.
1. The stress is affecting your health
Stress is the leading cause of many health problems. This article from WebMD points out at least ten of them. When you spend day in, and day out in a job you hate, you better believe you’ll be stressed out.
Over years that stress adds up, and you could end up with the health problems laid out in this article. Whether you realize it or not, you bring that stress home with you, and it affects everyone around you.
Years of stress could shorten your life and make you a bitter person. The longer you deal with the stress, the more problems it leads too. One of the best things you can do in life is avoid stressful situations as much as possible. That’s one reason why I don’t talk about politics on Facebook!
2. It’s fostering bad habits
Besides the stress, working at a job you hate can lead to, and foster other bad habits. One major problem is bad sleeping patterns. The odd hours I worked had me sleeping three hours a night for years.
You may be getting more than three hours, but if you’re at a job you hate, I’m guessing you’re either getting too much or not enough. The stress and hours might be keeping you from getting enough. The stress could also be making you sleep too much because that’s your escape.
Besides sleep, it could be bad eating habits, quickness to anger, zoning out, or a host of other bad habits. When you’re at a job you hate, you turn to an outlet, an escape, and a lot of times it’s not a healthy one.
3. It’s making you complacent
If you stay at a job you hate for years, you could be training yourself to accept mediocrity. That may sound a little extreme, but think about it a bit. You’re learning how to settle for a “good enough” situation, and that will affect how you think about other situations in your life.
When you start to settle in life, you’re heading down a slippery slope. Time is the only resource we’ll never get back. If you settle, you’re wasting that precious time on something you’ll regret later.
Whenever I think about breaking away from complacency, I think of the amazing Steve Jobs quote:
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
4. It’s affecting other areas of your life
The stress, bad habits, and complacency will not stay at work; you will bring them home with you. For a long time I thought I could separate my work life and home life.
I thought I could be miserable for 10 hours a day, get done with work, and then go home and forget about it. It took years, but I realized that what happens to you for that many hours will affect your home life.You’re bringing all that junk home.
You might not be screaming or kicking chairs over, but when you’re quiet and moody, your family notices. They can pick up on your tension, and it makes them tense. They won’t know how to deal with you.
5. It’s keeping you from the life you truly deserve
At the end of the day a job you hate is sucking the life out of you. It’s making you miserable, stresses you out, and it’s affecting other areas of you life. It’s keeping you from the amazing life you truly deserve.
There’s an amazing life waiting for you if you’re willing to do something about. I’m not sitting here telling you that this will be easy. Life isn’t a movie where everything magically works out.
What I am telling you is that if you’re willing to do what it takes, you can leave a job you hate. Realize that this takes time; it took me three years to leave that job that I hated.
I know what you’re thinking because I get it all the time, “Good for him.” No, not just good for me, it’s good for many who have decided they wanted more for their life. It can be good for you too.
Think about what you want to do for work. What are you passionate about? Start to research how you can land that job or start that business, if that’s what you want. We have this cool thing called the Internet that can tell you what it will take.
After you research, put a plan in place, and take action. Sounds easy, but expect that there will be bumps on the road. Determine right now that every time you fall, you’ll get back up. In the end, to create this amazing life, perseverance has to be your best friend.
The clock is ticking.
What is one thing you can do this week to get closer to your dream work situation?
This week’s articles
5 Reasons You Should Consider Becoming an Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur Magazine
9 Mantras For A Lasting Marriage
Mind Body Green
5 Things No One Tells You About Being a Parent
The Huffington Post
5 Difficult Roadblocks Guys Can Overcome
The Good Men Project
This article originally appeared on the Good Men Project.
Photo: Good Men Project